Life as I knew it has come to an end...

...but also, life goes on...

Sunday June 9, 2013

Today it's exactly 20 weeks since I have last updated this blog.  It's also exactly 20 weeks since I have last seen Frank alive...  Little did I know that, when I posted my last blog update with the pictures of the day before that it would also be the last of the geocaching that we had done together and the last picture of Frank   taken on a day out with Kevin, Adele and the children after we had arrived back from France a few days earlier.

Without going into details, I can tell you that it has been a very tragic event which has left all of us quite traumatised for a while.  Needless to say that travelling and geocaching have come to a screeching halt for a while.  However, life goes on and children (in this case our grandchildren) are quite resilient and it is probably because of them that I have slowly started to get back into geocaching again.

I am still coming to terms with the fact that I have lost Frank and also still feel very lost without him, but having the grandchildren around and with lots of support of my dear family and some very good friends I try to look forward and will try to stay on the road to recovery.

I still have my stories on the blog that I can revisit and I also still have the vivid memories of our geocaching, in particular in France, which are now great adventures with Frank that I have had and will remember for a long time to come.

After this introduction I am now going back to the second week of April, the week that Madeleine and James were staying with me during the school holidays.  Beside fb and the wii it was a little difficult to get them interested in outdoor activities, but we got there eventually. :-)

Tuesday April 9, 2013

Of course I have to do this from memory, but I believe that, because of the weather, we drove to cache site. It was quite muddy in some areas, but we got quite well through to the parking lot and walked from there.  The site is one where in earlier days, when there was talk of a bridge being built to open up the island to tourists, a man called Bill Stewart, opened a site with aquariums as a tourist attraction.  The attraction failed, but the ruins of the old aquariums still exist. The cache has the appropriate name: Bill's Aquarium.  Madeleine, James and I went in search of the cache and I think it was James who discovered it.  We left behind one of our Travelling Bugs: Eyechiwawa, which had earlier been retrieved by James' and Madeleine's mum and deposited in a place where I later found it. (Remember the blog update of 20 January?)  Surprise, surprise. ;-)

I have temporarily pinched a picture off the web
till I can go back to take pictures myself

Friday April 12, 2013

It's still school holidays, so Kevin comes over with Angus and Mikayla and they stay for the night.  It's quite fun to have all four children together for an overnight stay and we decide to do some geocaching together.  First we re-visit Bill's Aquarium so Kevin and the kids can do their own search and chalk up another cache.  Next we drive to Woorim beach and go in search of Bunker Down and Turtles on Bribie.  For this we drive to the old bunker on the beach and the cache is an easy find.  For the next one we walk the 500m along the beach and go in search of Turtles on Bribie.  By then it's getting a bit dark and it takes some effort to find the right spot, but we get it eventually.  Another one down!

I don't have any pictures, as I forgot to take my camera.  I did take some pictures later on at home though, when all of us played a game of Squatter, the Australian answer to monopoly:

Sunday April 14, 2013

Sunday, the last day of Mady's and James' stay.  Time for some outside adventure as the weather is great and there are a few more caches waiting to be found.

First we head to Sail Away at Bob's Pond.  It's a small lake, the name pond is actually more accurate, where lovers of remote controlled model boats like to show their skills.  Not on Sunday though, so we have the place for ourselves.  Just as well, because we would otherwise have too many muggles.  Mady discovers the well-hidden cache this time, although James is the one who doesn't mind posing in front of the camera:

Another short drive (too long to walk to these caches and we don't have the children's bikes this time) brings us to the Bribie Island Community Arts Centre.  Next to this building is a beautiful native garden with a nice walk amongst the native trees and bushes.

We walk through the garden and on through the bush, which is part of the National Park and arrive again at a small lake.  This one is more of a natural lake and there is a show of beautiful waterlilies.

Just past the lake we find GZ (Walk the Waterhole) and this time it is James who finds the cache.  As we notice that it is big enough to hold a TB we walk back to the car to retrieve the Pointing Finger (or whichever its name was) and deposit it in the container.  After logging this find I now have 60 caches to my name.  I'm happy. :-)

The picture of this lake is the last one that I have been able to take as my camera seized up and I have not been able to get it in working order again, even after re-setting the factory settings.

For a while this was also our last bit of geocaching.  We had a go again at the Full Head of Steam, but it is still eluding us.  One day...